The past month has been a stressful whirlwind of me desperately scrambling to get ready to leave for South Africa. I got my official placement in Port Elizabeth and have since been working to get my visa. The problem with this is that South Africa requires a background check and asks for one from the FBI. I sent in my info to the FBI and only afterwards discovered that they would need over 8 weeks to process my request. By this deadline I would have already left the country - not a possibility. So I got both a signed letter from the county affirming that I did not have a record and a print-out from the state police online data system saying the same.
Needless to say, these last minute issues really had me frazzled and i decided to go to Chicago in person to hand in my application and know then and there if there was going to be an issue with anything. I arrived last Wednesday morning and handed over all my materials. It literally took the woman working the desk 5 minutes to look through everything and tell me everything was good and they would mail me my passport back in 10 days. So easy. I just laughed at myself for how stressed out I had been the last week or so.
Now I am pretty much set to go. Nate Thompson wrote a great article about my internship in the GH Tribune (http://www.grandhaventribune.com/content/coe%E2%80%99s-internship-work-uses-soccer-help-prevent-hivaids-africa) and I am hoping that will help kick-off my fundraising efforts. I am headed to New Hampshire on the 2nd of August for orientation. Next post, hopefully I will be onsite in Port Elizabeth.
